Sakura and Kakashi
by bluefurcape
Summary: One year and forty days ago, Kakashi stopped talking to Sakura. ("Locked In" prompt for KakaSaku month 2018)


It had been one year and forty days since the last time Sakura had spoken to Kakashi. But she wasn't counting. The long silence was not surprising since 'Dead Last,'Sasuke's affectionate(?) nickname for Naruto, was an apt descriptor for the esteem Sakura held in Kakashi's eyes; something that had been a bit of an unacknowledged truth since their trainee days. She was a grown woman now, self-actualized enough to know that her worth didn't come from the approval of others.

Still, a thin shard of hurt pierced her every time he brushed passed her in the halls of the hospital without so much as a friendly, "Yo." He never failed to meet her gaze, his nose buried in a worn orange volume in a blatant show of not to noticing her. The first time may have been an honest error. The second time too. But now (after the seven hundred and fourth time, she wasn't counting), it was all too clear that the snub was deliberate. He had cut her from his life and she didn't know what she had done wrong.

"Forehead, as irritating as you are, you're a perfectly fine friend. The problem lies with the old man, not you," Ino had said early on when Sakura began to notice the distinct lack of Kakashi interactions in her life.

Ino's blunt observation steeled her. Sakura tried her best, as she always did, to be the person that people could rely on and trust. When she made mistakes, she apologized and made it right. She was imperfect, but she didn't deserve the cruel cold shoulder without any explanation. If she had done something wrong, then Kakashi should have come to her; the fact that he hadn't only drove home that even after all of this time, even after facing the end of the world together, he wouldn't do her that small courtesy when she would have torn apart the moon if he ever came to ask her for help (and presumably asked her to tear apart the moon).

She was done. Done with his bullshit and his aloof, brooding manner. He didn't care about her and it was time to come to terms with it, painful as that would be to admit. Since she was a young girl, she had tried so hard to meet his expectations, exceed them even, because his expectations had not been high when it came to her. Why did she try so hard? That was a question that would require a hard look at herself that she didn't want to do. She disliked the hunger, the need to be liked, that made her feel small and petty. She didn't need him. She had other people who cared about her enough to treat her like a human being. Her job was not to try and fix him or bend over backwards for a golden star that would never come. How much of herself had she poured in the effort to gain Kakashi's approval? Too much. She needed to move on.

She sighed, leaning back in her creaking chair. The thick medical texts on her shelves were grouped by body part, starting with the head downward, though she thought it might have been better if it had been by illnesses and conditions; these were then further alphabetized by title within their groupings. Her framed certificates had been leveled on their respective places on the wall. The little juniper bonsai growing in a blue ceramic pot had been trimmed and re-wired. If she were to open her drawers, all of her supplies would be in perfect order, her paper clips in stacked rows from end to end, her sticky notes arranged by color. Her office was normally neat, but today, it was on a different level of organization. She was beginning to eye the various pens in the cup sitting before her and considering whether to arrange them by color or nib thickness. As of late, this was the routine that she'd settled on, lingering after work without much reason. Too drained from a full day to treat another patient, but still feeling an itch, a need to be doing something instead of sitting at home.

The surface of her desk gleamed in the late summer sunset that streamed through her office windows, the small nicks and stains from coffee mugs highlighted. From where she sat, she could see many of the hospital staff leaving the building, their shifts over, heading to dinner with their loved ones. The streets of Konoha outside of the courtyard began to fill with slow foot traffic, shopkeepers waving to customers, eateries opening their doors to welcome the evening rush. She watched them aimlessly, feeling as if the world was moving forward and she had stopped.

A familiar shock of silver hair surfaced through the many heads in the crowd. The corners of Sakura's lips twitched down as she spotted Kakashi walking leisurely against the flow of traffic, headed toward the administrative building that was just a short jaunt from the hospital. _Jerk_ , she thought.

A sparrow fluttered onto the ledge outside of her window, interrupting her idle people watching, and politely hopped further in. Sakura held out her hand, letting the bird bounce into her palm and disappear in a puff of smoke. It left behind a small rolled up scroll tied with a piece of twine. When she opened the message and read its contents, her brows knitted together at the summons to see the Hokage, stamped in the corner with a seal to notate the high level of urgency.

She thought of Kakashi walking to the administrative building. A sinking feeling weighed on her that he had received a similar message and that their paths would be crossing that day.

#

The administrative building was eerily empty when Sakura arrived. When she walked through the front doors, a lone aide greeted her and led her to one of the lower levels underground, where the offices and meeting chambers were more secure, built for conferences among the political elite of Konoha. The hairs on the back of Sakura's neck stood as she anticipated being briefed on a mission and because of something else that she couldn't exactly put her finger on. Once they reached their destination, the aide unlocked a heavily fortified door, making a few quick hand seals, and gestured for her to enter. Sakura glanced around uneasily, prone to suspicion especially when the situation did not seem quite right. She peered inside and saw that Kakashi was already there, slouching in a chair while he read, the lines of his body language completely relaxed. While she was still apprehensive of his company, she was somewhat reassured that he was present and seemingly blase about the whole thing.

The room decor was like many of the other office spaces in the building, spare, but functional. A rectangular table dominated the center, meant to seat many people at once, though there was only one occupant now. The blank walls were painted an unassuming light beige, with the barest decoration, a set of old fashioned festival masks carved from wood to represent a fox demon, a shrine maiden, and tengu. Not a window in sight. On a side cabinet, Naruto had provided a samovar of coffee and a little bar of sugar, cream, and stirrers, possibly anticipating a long night. Upon entering, the door shut with a thud behind Sakura, making her jump. Many clicks followed as the mechanisms within turned back into place. A complicated seal of characters snaked out from the center of the stone, coiling in a perfect circle as its edges expanded. When it reached its end, the characters glowed red briefly before fading back to black.

Sakura turned away from the door to her only companion in the enclosed space, awkwardly standing there as he ignored her presence. He didn't even spare her a glance as she sat down at the table, a few chairs of respectable space between them. The moment her butt hit the seat a panel in the table parted. She leapt to her feet, while Kakashi remained thoroughly unimpressed. A speaker rose, whining to life.

"Test, test," Naruto's voice came through.

Sakura slammed her hands on the table, forming delicate cracks on its surface. "What the hell is going on?"

"Good evening, friends. So, there's something that I've noticed in the past…month or so that things have become awkward, to put it lightly," Naruto said. Not that she explicitly talked to him about her troubles with Kakashi, but Sakura still rolled her eyes at the fact that Naruto was always the last one to notice that something was amiss. There were a few snickers in the background, indicating that a few others had the same thought as Sakura. Wait, others?

"You're such a dope, Naruto," Ino's voice crackled over the speaker.

"Hey, if I'm such a dope, then how did I come up with this super brilliant plan? Now, Sakura. Kakashi. You're probably wondering what is going on."

"You noticed that things were weird between Kakashi and me and decided to lock us in a room until we talked," Sakura responded flatly.

Silence followed.

"Err." A slight rustle as he shifted uncomfortably. "Yea." A healthy chorus of mocking laughter ensued. Sakura could almost see him standing there dejectedly as he was sympathetically, if not condescendingly, patted on the back. An 'A' for effort at least.

"Who else is there?" she asked suspiciously.

"Not that many of us." His voice went an octave higher as he lied. She scowled. She could clearly hear Hinata softly giggling and Tsunade's cackle was too distinct for her not to recognize, especially after she'd heard it live on many occasions when a bottle of forbidden sake was involved. Kiba loudly whispered that he predicted that this would end in sex. Her cheeks flushed. Naruto cleared his throat and continued, his tone very much like the one that he used for wayward Academy students that had been brought to him for a good scaring. "This is for your own good! You're both acting like children and honestly, it's high time to grow the fuck up. We'll check in on you in the morning, but you're in a reinforced room made of stone that naturally dampens chakra. There are snacks and drinks in the cabinet." He was gloating. He was definitely gloating for all those times that she'd used the same tone of voice on him when he and Sasuke got into one of their ridiculous spats.

"Let us out, you psychos!" She grabbed hold of the speaker, rattling it. In that moment of desperation of not wanting to be trapped in the same room as the man that she'd been avoiding for months, she forgot her own strength even without any enhancements from her chakra, ripping the electronic device from the open panel. The ends of the raw wires sputtered with sparks as she stared at the now quiet box. She let out a squeak of dismay at the broken speaker. Shit.

She dropped the speaker on the table, changing tactics, turning to the door that she had come from just a few minutes ago. The imposing seal bore down on her as she called upon the familiar pathways of energy that ran through her body that would grant her the ability to bust through the wall like the human wrecking ball that the legends and myths surrounding her claimed she was. Briefly, she felt a surge of strength, but like a candle being doused, it guttered and she instinctively knew that punching through now would only result in a broken hand. Being in tremendous pain would not change the fact that she was stuck in a room all night with Hatake Kakashi, masked man of infinite scorn, the silver haired asshole of silence...judgy judgeroo.

Grabbing a chair, she threw it with all her might at the door, shattering it into splinters. Not a scratch. She cried out in frustration until her throat felt raw. By the time she quieted, her face was heated and she was breathing hard.

"Oh boy," Kakashi muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" she snapped.

"Nothing."

She glared at him as he continued to read. When the force of the resentment from her eyes failed to kill him on the spot, she returned her attention to the seal, taking in its construction and trying to find a weak point in it.

"The Fourth invented that thing on the door, you know," Kakashi said, referring to the past leader who was most famous for successfully sealing a demonic creature of ancient malevolence into his infant son. She felt a brief surge of empathy for the nine tailed fox.

So she did the only thing that she could do given the situation and sat down on the floor, her face in her hands, resigning herself to the fact that she was in for a long night. Compared to other, high risk missions where she had fought off enemies determined to tear her limbs from their sockets, this was infinitely worse. It wasn't that she didn't want this awkwardness with Kakashi to end, but it was getting to the principle of it all. He needed to learn that he couldn't treat her like this anymore. More than anything, she needed to know that she wouldn't let him treat her like this.

No words passed between them. A clock did not grace any of the walls, nothing to tick away the seconds and marking the drag of time. She paced. She lied down on the ground. She stood on a chair and checked one of the air vents, only to find it too small to even fit her head, a precaution likely to prevent covert activities while important political discussions were being had. The silence was beginning to feel like a cloud of noxious perfume, tolerable when there was enough distance between them, but concentrated and choking in an enclosed space.

"I think it's been more than three hours," she claimed aloud, just to break the monotony.

Kakashi glanced at his watch (when had he started wearing watches?), and responded, "It's been forty two minutes."

Loud swearing followed.

#

September was the month that she'd gotten divorced. One day, she'd woken up alone in the bed that she'd shared with her ex-husband and realized that seven years had gone by. She'd wondered then when she'd learned to just accept how things had become. The dinners with just her and Sarada. The parent-teacher conferences where the instructor sympathetically, if mistakenly, patted Sakura's hand for being so brave as a single mother. The fact that not a closet in their home contained a single item of Sasuke's clothing.

Maybe she could have handled it if Sasuke's coldness had only extended to her, but she noticed Sarada watching Inojin with his father at the summer lantern festival with a sadness that broke her heart. Over and over again, Sarada bit her lower lip before shaking it off and putting on a brave face. She was just a child, born into this world with all of Sakura's love. Sakura knew something had to change.

The divorce was messy, a process that she didn't care to relive if she could help it. Some people that she thought were her friends turned on her, blamed her for her marriage falling apart. Ino was always there for her and for that she would be truly grateful. Naruto did his best, though on the most basic level, he didn't understand why Sasuke just couldn't get it together. At least he hadn't tried the same kind of stunt he was pulling tonight with her and Sasuke. She shuddered to imagine what kind of permanent damage that would have done. Kakashi at least was willing to humor this. She imagined Sasuke would have renounced Konoha for good, if the situation had been forced on him.

Ino was the shoulder that Sakura had cried on, but Kakashi had been there for her in his own way. Take-out dinners picked up for her and Sarada. Training sessions here and there to help her daughter with a particularly tricky technique. A leak fixed in their ceiling after a bad storm. Chance encounters that always made her feel like the world wasn't so bad, reminding her that she still had people that she could trust.

The only exit to the room remained secured, the seal glaring back at her like a disembodied eyeball. She couldn't believe that she was still here. She took a piece of paper from the stack left on the table, and after noting that it was regarding a meeting on nothing important (just Naruto's doodles and a few ideas for Icha Icha fanfiction) she tore little pieces from it and crumpled them into balls. The repetitive action soothed her somewhat.

Eventually, she grew tired of sitting on the chair and, because it was preferable over the floor, she chose to stretch out on top of the table, staring up at the recessed lighting on the ceiling. The fatigue of the day caught up to her and she longed for her bed. She had never been much of a night owl by nature, but she had a suspicion that the same was not true for Kakashi. He remained as he was, engrossed in his book without a single complaint. Paired with the fact that he often would show up to training sessions scheduled to begin in the morning well into the afternoon, she surmised that he probably preferred being awake at night.

"This is so pointless," she said under her breath. To her surprise, Kakashi's gaze flickered up to her. She could almost believe that she had imagined breaking through his general shield of indifference. The silence had stretched this long, so she wondered why he reacted at all.

Being forced into the same room together seemed like an ill thought through plan, a matter-of-fact strategy that was not surprising coming from Naruto. Despite the years since they'd both been taken off active duty, they were still both shinobi. They had endured worse interrogation techniques, though she was tempted to say that this was going to make the top ten. She supposed she should be touched that Naruto still retained a bit of the naivete of his youth. He believed in the best version of people, meaning that he failed to understand why people just couldn't get along. It must have been especially hard to swallow when it came to his old teammates. But sometimes that was just how it was. Teams grew apart, lost contact. It was a natural part of life.

"You should sleep. It'll make the time pass faster," Kakashi said. The statement didn't count as a real conversation, though it would be the first time that he'd spoken more than two words at once to her in more than a year. It veered towards a command, the kind a superior officer would drop curtly. All business.

A part of her didn't want to give him the satisfaction of ordering her around, like he was still her captain, but she was tired. She refused to answer him, turning away and closing her eyes, aggressively trying to fall asleep. Even breathing. Clearing her mind. Counting by multiples of three. She used all of the tactics at her disposal to make herself fall unconscious, but success eluded her. Her brows knitted together.

The problem was that she realized she could feel his attention on her back.

"Quit staring," she demanded. At the same time, her curiosity speculated wildly on the reason for his eyes being on her.

He coughed. The chair legs dragged as he shifted his position. She held her breath as she waited for his response, but there was none. Did he finally want to talk or was there something gross stuck to her back? She discreetly reached around and patted the area.

"Do you have an itch?" Kakashi asked.

Immediately, she retracted her hand. "No."

"Naruto…sure is something. Isn't he?"

"He's an idiot."

Kakashi sighed. "I didn't realize that it had become this bad."

"Oh, I don't know. I regularly stop speaking to some of my oldest friends all the time. It's a completely normal thing to do."

"…Sorry."

She sat up, incredulous. "Sorry? That's it? _Sorry?_ You ignored me for a year. What did—" She stopped herself, realizing that she was about to ask him what she had done wrong, because her default always went to a place where the fault lied with her."Never mind, there's no point." She turned away again to lie on her side, showing her back to him. She cringed at herself, torn between feeling like a bitch and feeling weak. Neither made her consider herself a very good person.

She heard the pages of his book rustle as he closed them. He asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm not." Screw it, if they weren't friends anymore, at the very least she was going to get some kind of closure. She rolled to her back, her body hitting the table like a sack of potatoes with a thump. "Why did you stop talking to me?"

He blinked, the book in his hand halfway raised in hesitation, as if he was considering just hiding his face instead of responding. The muscles in his neck tightened as he swallowed. Finally, he sighed. "I was distracted by a few things."

Her lips pressed together. She wanted to shoot back that she had seen him out and about, talking with Genma, doing stupid shit with Gai, even grabbing a bowl of ramen with Naruto. She didn't want to admit just how closely she'd been paying attention, knowing that it would only make her appear needy and insecure. "You could have come to me if you needed help," she said softly, deciding to ignore what she felt was a lie. Arguing about it would only end badly.

"I wouldn't want to burden you like that."

"That's what friends do. They come to each other for help." Perhaps they weren't friends. Perhaps they never had been. Pity could have motivated him to help her back then. She ignored the aching emptiness the thought left in its wake. "I guess you didn't see me like that." He didn't want to rely upon her.

"I couldn't come to you for this," he murmured.

"But we _are_ friends," she said, contradicting the voice of doubt in her head.

"Of course."

She grabbed one of the small pieces of crumpled paper that she'd been piling on the table. She threw them at him, one by one. "Friends. Don't. Do. What. You. Did." It wasn't cool. The unaffected, stoic asshole act had lost its appeal to her long ago.

He took the barrage of paper balls without changing his expression. Tiny pieces got stuck in his hair. She giggled, which broke into full on laughter, at his ridiculous appearance. It wasn't as funny as it should have been, but the mental and physical exhaustion was getting to her. The corners of his mouth tilted up.

"Good to see you finally cracking a smile after all this time," she said.

"You were always able to make me smile." His words were soft, almost shy.

The revelation touched her, but her bright expression faltered. "Then tell me why you stopped talking to me."

He closed his eyes. "I can't. I'm sorry."

#

If not for the chakra dampening stone, Kakashi would have disappeared after his cryptic refusal. She was at a loss on how to draw out the conversation, so she let it drop.

She accepted that sleep was an impossibility for the night. Kakashi went back to reading his Icha Icha in isolation and she was bored. In her delirium formed from a combination of a lack of rest and her emotions, she put together a doll of Kakashi, made of a permanent marker that she'd scavenged out of on of the cabinets and taped on some paper hair cut to resemble his spiky silhouette. She made one of herself too out of a pink highlighter.

"My name is Kakashi, and I'm a big ol' jerk," she made the makeshift doll say in her terrible imitation of his voice. She glanced over at Kakashi, who flipped through the pages of Icha Icha in deep concentration. The small bit of conversation that they'd had acknowledged the largest elephant in the room, but not much had been resolved. He still hadn't explained why he'd ignored her for so long. In fact, he made it clear just how reluctant he was to broach the subject. She continued in the little Kakashi's voice, wanting to provoke a reaction, if anything, "Icha Icha is the worst. You know that it doesn't matter if any of the characters die because they just come back to life later on! There's no real stakes in the story."

Kakashi's brow rose.

She waved little Kakashi in the air dramatically. "The love story in Icha Icha Violence doesn't have enough development. Am I supposed to believe that Yuki and Soichiro are hot for each other at first sight when they have _nothing_ in common?"

Kakashi started drumming his fingers on the table.

"The villain's motivation is weak—so he's just mad that Soichiro was rude to him? Is that a good enough reason to try and wreck everyone's lives?" she made the Sakura doll say.

"You're missing the point of Icha Icha completely," Kakashi interrupted, an edge of irritation in his voice.

"Enlighten me."

He leaned forward, on the verge of launching a tirade, before he stopped himself. He settled back into his seat, shaking his head. "Never mind."

She wasn't even worth the effort of a stupid argument about made up characters. She let the makeshift dolls fall, her shoulders shaking. "That's how it always is, isn't it? Do you know how hard it's been for me to accept that this is how it's going to be?" Things had been different right after the war. She couldn't claim they had been bosom buddies, but there had been more to their relationship than this awkward, tense silence. Then her divorce happened and that had been difficult. Sasuke had not taken it well, though in the end, he accepted that it was over. During those awful days, her random encounters with Kakashi had been some of the only times that she had been able to smile. He broke through the misery and guilt. She had always trusted him, but she came to learn exactly why. He was there for her in unexpected ways. Not to fix her. He was just…there.

And at one point she had thought they were becoming something more. Foolish. "I missed you, Kakashi. Really missed you. You were part of _my_ team." To her horror, tears dripped down her face. Her voice cracked. "You locked me out."

She hid her face, ashamed that she couldn't stop crying. The floodgates were open and the truth was, she was never okay with losing Kakashi. She needed his odd, stabilizing presence in her life; the past year had shown her just how much she needed him.

She heard his chair scrape across the carpet and looked up. He moved quickly when he needed to and suddenly he was by the door, sizing it up, then rearing back and slamming his fist into it. Predictably, the seal remained whole, but he stood there, frozen.

"Kakashi?"

He hissed out a swear, falling to his knees and clutching his hand, his knuckles rapidly swelling to an ugly red that promised a darker bruise as time went on. Sakura hurried to him, instinctively reaching for her chakra. Belatedly, she remembered she couldn't heal as she needed to here. "You idiot, what have you done?" She clicked her tongue and gently cradled his hand. "Did my crying make you so uncomfortable that you actually tried punching your way out? You're going to have to deal with a broken hand until we get to leave. Stupid." She called him other variations of a person with low intelligence as she rummaged through the cabinets for some kind of emergency medical kit.

He watched her as she set the bones, wincing, but quiet. She managed to find painkillers and gave him a triple dosage to help him get through it for now.

"I'm sorry that you're always having to fix me up," he murmured.

She looked up in surprise. "What's wrong with that?" She smiled, wiping away the remnants of her tears. "You're my friend. I don't mind because I care about you." She let her voice drop. "You mean a lot to me. I just wish you cared about me too, just a little bit."

She felt his uninjured hand trace her jawline. "I do care, Sakura."

"Then why?" Her eyes were filling again with tears. He knew exactly what she was asking him about.

He confessed everything.

#

 _Kakashi wanted to see her again._

 _One day, he woke up with that realization and felt his stomach drop. Sakura was a bright, kind woman, with a young child to care for. She had only just gotten through her divorce with a man that she had tried hard to love since she was a child. It must have been difficult giving that up in so many ways. He berated himself for being selfish._

 _But he never claimed to be a good man. He still found himself running errands around the time that he knew that she would be out and about. Or heading to the hospital during her shift for an injury he could have easily avoided during a bet with Gai. More frequently, he came up with flimsy excuses to cross paths with her. Just hearing her laugh made his day._

 _He didn't dare hope that she felt the same way, though there were a few signs that even he picked up. There were the lingering glances. The non-verbal communications that passed between them as easily as if they could speak telepathically. The times when their hands brushed together and remained touching._

 _He could see a life with her, clear as day. Happy. That state almost seemed like a foreign concept, but he found himself daydreaming about it anyway. He couldn't offer her much, just himself, and he had to admit that sounded like poor prospects. He didn't exactly go courting frequently. And he was pretty sure that nobody called it 'courting.' Even his thoughts were proving to him that he was an out-of-touch old man. But if she wanted him too…_

 _He waited, gathering the courage to say something. Simply being by her side was enough. His day was good if she turned her smile on him. A little pathetic, he realized._

 _Kakashi had fallen hard and fast._

 _He was on his way to the bookstore to pick up a copy of a title that Sakura had recommended, when Sasuke's voice from an alleyway stopped him in his tracks. "What do you think you're doing?"_

" _Good afternoon to you too, stranger." Kakashi touched two fingers to his temple in a loose salute. After the divorce, Sasuke had cleared out of Konoha. Not that he had kept his residency here for long periods of time before, but he even cut contact with Naruto. Kakashi only knew that because Naruto included it on his drunken list of grievances against Sasuke. It was extensive, detailed, and repeating._

" _What do you think you're doing?" Sasuke repeated more firmly, stepping out onto the street. He had lost weight. His cheekbones cut more sharply than Kakashi remembered._

" _Going…to buy a book?"_

 _Sasuke scowled. "You know what I mean—with Sakura. I come back and find out that you've been hanging around her like a puppy."_

" _We run in to each sometimes." Many times a week._

" _You fixed a leaking ceiling in her house?" His glare grew pointed. "That better not have been a euphemism." For a man who chose to be a wandering hermit, he was surprisingly up to date on the gossip._

" _Is there a point to this? I have places to be late to."_

" _The divorce only went through three months ago," Sasuke pointed out._

" _Oh, has it been that long?" Kakashi feigned, well aware of the timeline._

" _You're a vulture. The ink's barely dried."_

" _Sakura and I are friends, Sasuke." Kakashi was a touch exasperated._

 _Sasuke continued as if he hadn't spoken, voice lowered in bitterness, "We don't deserve her." That gave Kakashi pause, the subtly snarky responses that he'd been volleying back dying in his throat half-formed. "You know it. We're more alike than I'd want to admit."_

 _That must have taken a lot for Sasuke to concede, given that he seemed to enjoy flaunting his own rarity through the 'Last of the Uchiha' status. (Seemed like he was a bad father, though, forgetting that Sarada was also an Uchiha.) A reluctant part of Kakashi agreed with Sasuke. Kakashi was not a superstitious man, but it did feel sometimes like a curse had followed both of them around for their lives. Misery affected the people that they loved the most. Sasuke had not been able to make Sakura happy and she had chased after him since she was a child. Was it arrogant to think that Kakashi could do any better?_

" _For her sake," Sasuke said, "leave her be. That's what I'm doing."_

" _Forgive me if I don't put a lot of stock in your judgment." Kakashi drew himself up._

" _Then what about this: did you know that there is a lengthy appeal process for divorce?" Sasuke tilted his head, regarding Kakashi coldly. "The statute of limitations is two years. The Council frowns upon divorce and gives every opportunity for couples to work it out."_

 _Kakashi blinked deliberately, not wanting to betray his thoughts as he put two and two together. "Is that a threat?"_

" _I gave Sakura what she wanted, but I will still protect her. She needs a different kind of man, not someone like us."_

 _Someone like us. The words echoed in Kakashi's mind with growing intensity._

 _Sasuke stepped back into the shadows of the alley behind him with a stony expression. The red of his sharingan eyes glowed even in the dim light._

 _His message had been clear._

 _#_

At the conclusion of his story, Kakashi said, "I couldn't let him put you through the divorce again." He looked down. "And I didn't think I mattered enough if I disappeared."

Oh, she was going to kill Sasuke.

Despite his injury, Sakura punched Kakashi in the shoulder as hard as she could. He yelped. "We're idiots," she whispered, then she pulled down his mask and kissed him.

The kiss was sweet, tinged with a year's worth of longing. He had believed that he mattered so little to her that he could just leave. She wanted him to know how far away from the truth he was. Her lips on his were a promise and when she felt him respond, her heart soared.

She couldn't help but laugh as a thought occurred to her. "So Sasuke told you not to date me, and you cut off all contact?" The ridiculous logic of it was not fitting with her.

He flushed as he sheepishly admitted, "It was a little extreme, but I couldn't go halfway. I—" his gaze lowered to her mouth, "—couldn't trust myself."

She hummed to herself, leaning closer. "I'm still mad at you. You have a lot of making up to do."

"I'll try my best," he breathed and kissed her again.

#

The door to the room swung open. From somewhere in the back of the group, Kiba groaned, "They're not naked!"

"Gross," Ino replied, shoving him.

"Are there any shrimp chips left?" Naruto peered at the discarded bags of various junk food.

Sakura sat up from the table that she and Kakashi had been sharing as comfortably as they could (not very). Her back ached, but not from any lewd acts, as much as she would have preferred that. She scowled, crossing her arms across her chest. "You assholes, I can't believe you did this to us." She sniffed. "We ate everything in the cabinets."

"Everything!" Naruto shouted in outrage. "Even my limited edition fire ramen that I hid in the vent?"

"Especially the limited edition fire ramen," Kakashi said.

Naruto's face crumpled. Then, just as quickly, he brightened. "You two look like you're getting along much better. I knew my plan would work."

"Actually, we're mortal enemies now." Sakura shot a glance at Kakashi, a spark of amusement in her eyes.

"Huh?" Naruto looked to the older man for an explanation, but received none. "Mortal enemies?"

"She is my nemesis. Come on, we'll let you buy us breakfast." Kakashi hopped off the table.

Naruto remained behind, frowning as if he was doing highly complicated calculus in his brain. It wasn't until he saw Kakashi take Sakura's hand, their fingers locking together, that he finally understood the joke.

He punched the air. "I'M A FLIPPING GENIUS."


End file.
